


There is No Return

by Senket



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Empty House, Post Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-07
Updated: 2011-03-07
Packaged: 2017-11-15 15:09:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/528601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Senket/pseuds/Senket
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p> Sherlock returns three years after his death. John is broken.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There is No Return

**Author's Note:**

>  Yeah, I don't know either. But the stories I read are usually either John being pissed or relieved, and I like breaking characters? I don't even remember what gave me this idea, and that was, what, four hours ago? Oh, not-beta'd.

When Sherlock reappears in the doorway of 221b Baker Street three years after disappearing, John does not throw himself at the man. He doesn’t throw him out either. In fact, he doesn’t much of anything.

Sherlock stands in the doorway, feeling his heartbeat increase as they stare at each other. John’s gaze is steady, neither warm nor cold as he watches Sherlock, inert in his chair. Sherlock eventually moves, nervously careful as he creeps to the couch, never turning his back to John as he seats himself.

He makes his own inferences while they’re there. John has become a writer while Sherlock was ‘away’- he already knew that, honestly, having kept up with John’s blog, seen the book currently on sale. The signs are clear, though. He flexes his wrists habitually, the inset of carpal tunnel. He wears glasses now, eyes red at the corners, strained after too many hours staring at a screen. He’s gotten skinnier- perhaps he still works out occasionally, but he’s clearly lost a good amount of muscle since his army days, hasn't eaten properly to make up for the loss. He clearly doesn’t stay home that often- the living room is not at all cluttered, but the lingering dust tells him it's not due to a recent cleaning. A worn suitcase sits near the doorway; there are boxes of take-out in the rubbish bin, but not as many as there would be if he ate at home, and he can see from here that there aren’t any dirty pots or pans. There are other signs, of course, but he’s tired and he hasn’t been home in three years.

Despite his months of recovery, his almost-actual death falling off a mountain (to put it simply) had taken a great toll on his body and he gets tired far more quickly and far more often then he would like, now. He falls asleep on the couch, and when he wakes up John is still watching him without moving, slouched in his chair.

////

His bedroom is the same, except for the layer of dust settled over his things. His bed is clean, though, and closer inspection finds that the sheets have been washed recently enough that the smell of fabric softener still lingers. Brushing long fingers along the familiar sheets, Sherlock feels strange indeed. John is standing in the doorway, eyes fixed on the man’s lanky form as they have been for the last several hours.

“You knew I was alive?” he asks, awe making his voice soft. His closet is still full of his clothes- he’d left everything behind to make it look as though he really had died, having purchased a new wardrobe using his Turkish Brigade. He hadn’t thought he’d left a sign, but perhaps John’s intuition had-

“Don’t be an idiot,” he hears, breaking that thought completely. John’s tone is not smug, it’s empty, as brittle as it is hollow. When he turns, John has his eyes fixed on Sherlock’s shoes.

/////

The next day, Sherlock checks John’s blog out of habit. It had kept him grounded while he didn’t exist on anyone’s map, chasing down Moriarty, and it kept him at least semi-aware while he recovered in the hospital for months.

The new post reads: ‘Sherlock Holmes walked through my door today.’

The comments are mixed. Many of them express some confusion; all from followers that had only joined in the last three years. Who is Sherlock Holmes? Why should we care? There’s some flighty ribbing about past boyfriends, which Sherlock finds strange- John’s never mentioned being attracted to men, and he certainly doesn’t remember reading about any existing in the past three years.

It seems pretty clear that he’s missed something by the rest of the comments though. Many are effusive- ‘Great news,’ ‘I’m happy for you,’ ‘that’s just fantastic!’ Some are a different sort of confusing, generally amount to ‘but he was dead, wasn’t he?’

A heavy bundle of them are screaming warnings. ‘I hope you kicked him out. Tell me you kicked him out.’ ‘Don’t you dare talk to him.’ ‘Throw him out.’ ‘Don’t do this to yourself again.’ ‘ _How dare he._ ’ He’s really not sure what he missed.

In the three years since his disappearance, John’s blog had become bland- impersonal, really. Whereas before the texts had been teeming with streams of thought, aborted efforts at his own deductions before they were replaced with Sherlock’s own, images and recollections vibrant with detail and cheeky execution, John’s current posts were much more philosophical, clever but cold, detached studies of sociology and thought.

Sherlock had attributed the change to the sudden lost of exciting adventures in John’s life; he had to write about something, but when you spent all day working in a surgery, getting groceries, sitting at home, you were bound to find something outside your life to talk about, and John was too kind to alienate anyone by making the sort of personal judgements that would colour his posts, at least in such a public forum. Apparently he’s missed something obvious.

/////

“You were married when I left,” Sherlock says. There isn’t a pale band around John’s finger, the split is not recent. He hadn’t expect to see it, he knows all about the divorce- or rather, he knows it happened, not why. He hadn’t had enough information to determine why.

“That’s true.”

He sits, waiting, but answers are not forthcoming, so he presses on, direct and perhaps careless. He wouldn’t mind John being angry with him, because John hasn’t shown anything but a steady and sad exhaustion in the last week.

“Why did she leave you?”

John’s breathing speeds up while he mulls over the question, his breast heaving as his face tenses in something resembling pain.

“I lost my head for a while.”

“And?”

“And at first she said ‘it’s the grief, it’ll pass.’ Only when it didn’t show signs of passing, she left.”

“Some woman,” Sherlock snorts, nose wrinkling in dislike.

“Some grief,” John Watson answers quietly, tapping his cane against his leg.  
  
He pauses, awkwardly, not knowing how to reply, because John isn't acting like anything is wrong, but clearly something is, like he's never gotten his head back together at all, like he's still grieving, but Sherlock's not sure how he could possibly fix that.  
  
"And yet all my things are still here?"  
  
"I used the room upstairs as my writing office."  
  
"Ah," he replies, because it doesn't really explain anything but there's nothing else to say.  


/////

They start going on cases again, because when can’t he? John follows because Sherlock asks him to. He sort of expects them to fall back into routine eventually, though he’s forgiving enough when it doesn’t happen instantaneously. The first case goes up after a few days, less John’s voice and more a clinical deconstruction of events. Sherlock is somewhat surprised, but it’s been three years; John must simply be struggling to find his ground again, now that the events are his own.

It doesn’t change. Four cases later, posts occurring every day, John is not getting any looser with his form; instead of becoming more emotional, he seems to be retreating farther away from himself. The posts become more disjointed, the doctor losing track of the order of events.

Paragraphs describing scenes are reduced to a mere list of small but significant details, coupled with Sherlock’s deductions, occasionally joined by Lestrade’s, or Sally’s- never John’s. He doesn’t share them.

He doesn’t share them with Sherlock either, not until the detective demands them, case by case. John’s voice is mechanical, then, eyes fixed steadily on the piece of evidence he is meant to dissect.

This is what PTSD looks on John Watson, this unnatural stillness- not a calm, but a cracking: unmoving to prevent shifting wrong against the spreading web of cracks on the inside. It hurts when Sherlock makes the diagnosis, hurts a little more when he asks John if he’s been to a psychiatrist lately and John only says that it’s far too late for that.

Sherlock never hears John cry, but he doesn’t see John smile, either.

Cases are getting worse for him as John gets 'better.' The man has a solitary desperation in his eyes where there used to be exhilaration. John Watson used to run after criminals like a hard-headed bull, dashing towards danger; now he’s running like the last antelope, bleeding at the knee, stumblingly fleeing from a great black maw swallowing everything up behind him. Sometimes John runs like he’s trying to catch the past, and that’s the worst thing Sherlock’s ever seen.

When John Watson finally snaps, Sherlock is away. He comes back to find everything in the flat smashed to pieces, John covered in dust where he’s sitting amidst cracked wood, curled in on himself and shaking like a leaf. They put him in a ward for his own protection. Lestrade tells the nurses not to let Sherlock in under any circumstance; Mycroft won’t help Sherlock overturn his authority. Sherlock argues and snaps and screams, but they don't give. John cries for a week.

Sherlock stares up at him when John walks back in a month later, pausing, waiting for any sign. John sits beside him, starts to say something- stops, throws his arms around Sherlock’s neck, and holds him close, silent. Sherlock swallows against the tightness of his throat and pulls John closer. 

/////

In the end, Sherlock figures it out. The best way to make someone find their voice again is to strip away their defenses, one at a time, literally as well as figuratively, before driving forward until they're completely incoherent. At that point, it sort of comes out on its own. He considers it well worth the proper beat-down he’s suffered the following morning, even if everyone is going to mercilessly mock him for his shiner at the station.

He’s too busy being relieved to be annoyed when the following post comes out:

“My deepest apologies about my prolonged absence. I’d been detained for my own health- all sorted out, I promise. In other news, Sherlock Holmes is just as obtuse as ever. And Lord of the Rings is a classic, you twat. The next time you call it drivel I’m burning your copy of Winter.”

Vivaldi’s, no doubt. Empty threat, anyway. Even if Sherlock hadn’t memorized it already, the air is John’s favourite. 

He hasn't played it in years, now that he thinks of it. (Well, he had. Frequently. Nightly, even. But not where John could hear.)

If anything, Sherlock knows how to take a hint.  
  
And he catches that smile, too.


End file.
